


Flat of Angles

by solitarysister



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Heartache, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Nonlinear Narrative, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sad, letter writing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 12:23:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6610579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solitarysister/pseuds/solitarysister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I leave for my honeymoon tomorrow night. That’s two weeks. And when I get home, there’s the move. Then I’m gone."<i></i></i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Repost because I deleted it the first time. I'm not entirely sure I'll write more but if I do it'll end up here.

Hannibal counted the ticks of the second hand. Five before Will spoke. 

“It’s my stag night.”

Five more before he continued.

“And Beverly has been asking for weeks what I wanted. She gave me suggestions, asked me about my favorite things to do.” He took a step closer, Hannibal took a step back. “And it occurred to me how she and I have been speaking less. How she wouldn’t know what my favorite things to do are because they’ve changed. You changed them. And now all my favorite things to do are things I do with you.”

The foyer had never felt so small. Hannibal was at his most stoic, silent since Will pushed him aside and entered without invitation. They were on opposite sides, hovering near opposite walls. Two animals caged, even without witness they were a spectacle. 

“I wanted to give her the names of a few of your overpriced restaurants. Or ask to go to one of those stuffy bars. But the idea of being there without with you seemed,” three ticks, “pointless.” 

Two ticks. 

“I leave for my honeymoon tomorrow night. That’s two weeks. And when I get home, there’s the move. Then I’m gone.”

Four ticks, Will was looking for a reaction. Any hint to what Hannibal was thinking or feeling. He was given none. 

“And when I thought about my last night in this city the only thing I wanted to do was be with you. If you don’t want to stay here, we can go out. If you don’t want to talk, we don’t have to. If you don’t want to be in the same room with me, I’ll sit outside on your steps until sunrise. I don’t care about the circumstances or stipulations. I just want to spend these last few hours with you.” 

Sixteen ticks. “I suppose you’ll want something special for dinner? I was planning on duck.”

Relief. “It doesn’t have to be special.”

“Our last supper.” He was leaving the room, leaving Will to follow. “The meal must match the occasion.”

And follow he did. “So must the conversation. Our last, Hannibal - ”

He caught his hand, pulling him to a stop. Hannibal resisted the impulse to pull away, to retreat. Two animals in close quarters, he felt cornered. He didn’t trust himself here.

“Tell me everything you haven’t.”

Will said it like he meant it. Like he’d gladly spend the night listening to every frivolous detail that Hannibal had to offer him. He didn’t understand just how much the man had to tell. 

“Everything I don’t know about you. Everything you might have said if we had more time.”

Impulse. “I regret ever meeting you.” 

It hung in the air and Hannibal, for the life of him, could not remember deciding to say it. Or ever having thought it in the first place. Cornered animal, spitting and hissing, he couldn’t trust himself. 

So he tried again. “I had a sister.” 

And Will’s stricken, wounded expression softened to one of shy curiosity. And Hannibal found himself working to undo his blurted mistake. And so he told Will everything. 

“I play the theremin.”

“I love the way you are with your dogs.”

“I have a small collection of vinyl.”

“I noticed your hair is three different hues in the sunlight.”

“The duck will be ready soon.”

Will prompted him only once. 

“Will you miss me?”

_I will miss your company and our conversations. I will miss your criticizing my ‘overpriced’ restaurants and ‘stuffy’ bars. I will miss those dogs and your small house and the smell of you hidden beneath the scent of wet fur. I will miss our walks and your voice and the promise of seeing you the next day._ “Yes. I think so.”

“I’ll miss you.” His voice shook. “I’ll miss you everyday.”

Softly. “And I you.”

“I play the piano. I love your laughter lines and your hair when it isn’t gelled. I hate half the food you’ve served me but somehow, when you make it, it’s my favorite thing.” Will glared hard at a spoon he was clutching. “And _I will miss you._ ”

Hannibal took the spoon from his hand and replaced it with his own. 

Speaking softer still. “And I you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _\--- my stag night. I don't remember anything else with the clarity I do that. ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been so on the fence about posting this but here I go

He moved too, not long after Will left. He felt like a ghost in the city, haunting their old spaces and looking for remnants left behind. A week passed, another and he knew there was nothing left for him there. No living in the vacated husk of the place they'd began.

New York was louder. Too loud for Hannibal to hear himself think. He got caught up in the currents, let them guide him for three years. He set up a practice, he made friends, he threw dinner parties. Never cooked the meals himself, though. Never provided the meat either. He found he'd lost the taste for both or at least lost the ambition either required.

He was as much himself as he could be alone.

There were quieter nights, the long walks. He'd pick up his food and melt into the sidewalk's crowd. There was never any real darkness in the city but the front doors of his building glowed brighter than the rest, warm rays like honey through the glass. He would look to the glow and remember Will's words. _It's really the only time I feel safe._ But Hannibal didn't feel safe, he felt adrift. That boat on the sea would escape him. His apartment didn't feel like home.

His coat was thin, so was his patience. He hurried past a man screaming poetry for tips, _"You swallowed everything, like distance. Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!"_ Coming in from the cold, he brushed snowflakes from his hair and surveyed the lobby out of habit. The only real commotion was off in the restaurants, where people laughed and talked. He used to frequent them before he grew bored.

He was so terribly bored.

"Um, Dr. Lecter, right?"

He stopped. The elevators were in sight and he wasn't in the mood to talk but the girl at the front desk was giving him a polite enough smile. He could hardly walk away.

"Yes, that's me."

She hopped off her stool and left him for a moment. He watched her rummage through a drawer, watched her pull out a light blue envelope. "I keep missing you."

"I wasn't aware you were looking for me."

"No, I didn't think it was something to make a fuss about. Two months late, what are a few more days, right?" She handed him the letter. "It's a funny story from what I can tell. Got delivered to the wrong floor, passed around until it ended up under a stack of files here."

He recognized the handwriting. "Two months, you said?"

"Yes, terribly sorry about - "

He was at the elevator, in it.

He was at his door, fumbling with the keys.

He was in the apartment. Briefcase, coat, and his dinner dropped to the floor. The only thing that remained in his hands was the envelope.

He knew there was no way after two months with strangers that it could smell like Will but he could've swore that god awful aftershave was in the air. He turned it over and noticed the broken seal. Someone had peeled it open, tearing the blue paper. Had Will licked it sticky, smoothing the adhesive into place with his thumb. And a few fingers over his wedding ring, a simple silver band.

It wasn't stationary inside, it was a page from a boat motor handbook. The printed letters on one side were too smudged to read, greasy fingerprints spotted in the corners. Hannibal pressed the tips of his own fingers to them, stalling. He'd only read this for the first time once.

No greeting. The words were written with such sloppy penmanship Hannibal had to struggle to make them out. Some of it he couldn't. Had Will rushed to get these thoughts out, to send them before he changed his mind? Yes, that sounded like something Will would do. And so Hannibal was left with only these fragmented sentences to piece together.

_\---- and I just celebrated our anniversary. And for the third year in a row, I found I couldn't remember the wedding. She talks about all these things that --- my stag night. I don't remember anything else with the clarity I do that. How cold it was, the pattern of --- I don't recall the color, though. And the look on your face. That's not how I wanted to remember you, you know. --- heartache. You're usually so good at hiding --- a few more colors in my hair now. I'm going grey --- don't forgive me. I sometimes wonder if you have --- of my life, Hannibal. I think you were. And it was blue, you were wearing blue that night. And the duck was under cooked._  

No conclusion. The words, _the fleeting words_ , were so few. Hannibal read them again and again, each time feeling a little clench of pain somewhere in the vicinity of his heart.

He would memorize it in the months to come, could read it back from memory like a favorite poem. He memorized the back too, useless information about mechanics. There was no return address. Hannibal knew where to find him. But this letter was an omission, not an invitation.

That boat on the sea drifted farther still.


End file.
